Category Archives: Methodology

Dialogue 1: Old Wine In New Bottles

Before we begin, a definition is necessary. In the dialogues that follow, you will be invited to imagine a professor vomiting gold coins. This is not a street crime, it’s a modern form of alchemy. In the strange world of academia, “gold” is a metaphor for the prestige of professors and universities that are atContinue reading “Dialogue 1: Old Wine In New Bottles”

Fechner, Taine and Galton: Early Investigators of Visual Mental Imagery

Here we review the early research of three pioneering investigators of visual mental imagery (VMI): Fechner in Germany, Taine in France, and Galton in England. Gustav Fechner’s 1860 work on mental imagery was his magnum opus, Elemente der Psychophysik (Elements of Psychophysics), predating both Taine and Galton’s investigations and placing him as one of theContinue reading “Fechner, Taine and Galton: Early Investigators of Visual Mental Imagery”

Abuses of VVIQ rapidly increasing

This post addresses an issue which relates to the unwarranted ‘medicalisation’ of low visual mental imagery vividness scores. This trend follows an unfortunate labelling of people with low VVIQ scores as “aphantasic’ by a neurologist Adam Zeman at Exeter University in 2015. Added today to the VVIQ and VVIQ-2 instructions: Warning  Neither the original 16-itemContinue reading “Abuses of VVIQ rapidly increasing”

Subjective Validation Strikes Again: Mars Exploration Conducted for the US Government, May 22, 1984

Yet more pseudoscience has emerged from the remote viewing project StarGate funded by the CIA/DoD. This latest example of trash science promoted by the US government is a distraction from less palatable topics such as the Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine conflicts, the Sudan genocide, the stoking of new wars, global warming, and multiple other catastrophes forContinue reading “Subjective Validation Strikes Again: Mars Exploration Conducted for the US Government, May 22, 1984”

BMI: The Mismeasure of Weight and the Mistreatment of Obesity

DISCLAIMER: The republication of this article, originally published by KHN, by the curator of ‘Curious About Behaviour’ is not an endorsement of the opinions expressed by the contributor(s). Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News October 12, 2022 People who seek medical treatment for obesity or an eating disorder do so with the hope their health planContinue reading “BMI: The Mismeasure of Weight and the Mistreatment of Obesity”

The Psi Hypothesis Has Been Blown Sky High – One-hundred Years of Laboratory Research Have Yielded Zero Confirmable Findings

For Parapsychology, this 100% failure rate across the entire gamut of laboratory studies is nothing less than catastrophic. Parapsychology appears to have lost its way. A more fruitful approach is necessary. Ideas about this will follow.

Disquieting Features of Two ‘Confirmatory’ Psi Studies

In a previous post I reviewed the current status of psychical research in reference to so-called ‘confirmatory studies’ of laboratory psi. I concluded that the body of recent evidence suggests that the non-existence of laboratory psi is looking ever more certain. The case for the existence of laboratory psi appears to rely almost entirely onContinue reading “Disquieting Features of Two ‘Confirmatory’ Psi Studies”

A PRESS RELEASE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO – The PACE Trial: The Making of a Medical Scandal

EMBARGOED TO NOON GMT, MONDAY, 31 JULY 2017 Journal of Health Psychology Special Issue on The PACE Trial, Vol. 29, No 9, Aug. 2017 Publication date: 31 July 2017http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/hpqa/current A Special Issue of the Journal of Health Psychology on the PACE Trial, is to be published and freely available online on Monday 31 July 2017.Continue reading “A PRESS RELEASE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO – The PACE Trial: The Making of a Medical Scandal”

The Non-existence of Laboratory Psi Looks Ever More Certain from Recent Confirmatory Research in Parapsychology

Previously the evidence for psi was drawn from exploratory studies that do not adhere to the standards that are replicable across different laboratories. It is possible now to summarise the findings of empirical evidence drawn from confirmatory studies that enable one to draw firm conclusions. The existence of this solid data-base of empirical evidence inContinue reading “The Non-existence of Laboratory Psi Looks Ever More Certain from Recent Confirmatory Research in Parapsychology”

Red Herrings and Slurs: A Review by James E Kennedy of “Psychology and the Paranormal. Exploring Anomalous Experience”

James E Kennedy’s review of my book contains a mixture of faint praise, criticism, slurs and huge red herrings thrown in for good measure. In any book author’s life, a review by a respected figure, extending to six pages, is potentially a fillip, and I acknowledge James Kennedy for putting in the effort. In thisContinue reading “Red Herrings and Slurs: A Review by James E Kennedy of “Psychology and the Paranormal. Exploring Anomalous Experience””